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Parliament and the L.C.C.

The House of Commons was perfectly right -to refuse to the L.C.C. permission to pay for its Waterloo Bridge Policy out of loan. Whether it was wise to pull down Rennie's great bridge, to destroy what was perhaps the finest remaining architectural composition in London (that formed by the bridge with Somerset House), and to throw a widened stream of traffic at right 'angles across the middle of the Strand, we need not ifow discuss. The point i that iii doing what it did the present L.C.C. flouted the considered opinion of the House' as expressed by vote on two separate occasions, hot to mention the

advice of a strong Royal Commission. The Rouse would have stultified itself had it now granted special facilities for the execution of a policy Which it twice condemned. This would have held good, whatever the local authority might chance to be. But in London, where so many local questions have high national im- portance, there is special need not tO condone wanton disregard of the wishes of Parliament even by the L.C.C.